The Deep 3 Podcast - Cooper Flagg is A Mav, The Knicks Are Back, and Giannis Trade News! | TD3 Live

Episode Date: May 14, 2025

Breaking down this crazy week of NBA news #nba Support the stream: https://streamlabs.com/thedeep3pod Today we react to all the latest NBA news! Check out the TD3 merch: https://the-deep-3-shop.fourthwall.com/ Join the TD3 discord!: https://discord.gg/RUkjpMPp7E Listen on Spotify!: https://open.spotify.com/show/3elbbqVumwqz8wlIdknsLW Listen on Apple Podcasts!: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-deep-3-podcast/id1657940794 Follow us on TikTok!: https://www.tiktok.com/@thedeepthree Follow us on Instagram!: https://www.instagram.com/thedeep3podcast/ Isaac's twitter: https://twitter.com/byisaacg Muhamed's twitter: https://twitter.com/Mojo99_ Donnavan's twitter: https://twitter.com/Dsmoot3D Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So the last couple episodes of this show, the last stream, the last full-length episode, we started off, and we've had to do the thing we don't like to do, the thing that we always root against, we had to give it to him. We had to give it to Donovan. We had to give it to the New York Knicks. And here we are again, having to give it to him. But guess what? I'm still not giving it to them. Not getting me shit. Astrooach. Asteris. Okay. Okay. Yeah, we're going to get to all that.

However, we were up nine whenever it happened. You know what I'm saying? And now, here we are, the New York Knicks of 3-1 on the Boston Celtics, on the precipice of a conference finals. You guys don't understand what this means to me. I nearly fell to my knees in tears watching the Jalen Brunson Masterclass last night, watching McKell Bridges hit midi after midi after midi because I was like, in the first time in my lifetime, I'm going to be able to watch the New York Knicks,

not even get to the finals, not even beat in the finals, but play for a chance to be in the Bible. You understand? You understand what this drought is? This, last night was cinema, and we're here, and we're on the brink of greatness. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, that's enough. We're going to talk about that.

We're going to talk about the next go to 3-1. We're going to talk, honestly, this was a crazy weekend into Monday of news. We have Janus, potentially soft-launching the trade saga, so feeling it out through Shams, seeing what the media is going to react. We had the draft lottery. We had two series go to three. three ones in which massive massive favorites are down in that series we had a ton of stuff going on low key it's not an exaggeration to say from saturday through sunday the scope of the

NBA has changed in a lot of ways the hierarchy of power is changing and that's the best way to say it bro but we got to start with the worst way we had to start today with terrible news in part of that series in which donov's nix one of three one ended that last game with the boston southics lost jason tatum has officially ruptured his achilles tendon he's going to be out for obviously the whole of next season. It is reported that he actually got the surgery the day after it happened, which is crazy. I've never seen that kind of turnaround. But damn, it happened.

He's out for the next season, probably year plus. And apparently he'll make a full recovery. The surgery went well. But obviously the entire scope of the Eastern Conference, the entire scope of the NBA, the scope of the Celtics franchise, the scope of this young superstar's career potentially, has altered in the blink of an eye. What are y'all's first thoughts? I mean, it's just like, you saw it and you just like, damn.

Damn. That was just the, that's the only reaction that you have, especially because it happened on a play where he's not, he's not going to, you know, to drive to the basket or to do anything. He's going to really just to foul O.G. and O.B., because that play was over O.G. You know, he got, he jumped to pass a lane, he got to steal, he got to dunk, all that. And so to see him go down and to see him go down when he was having one of the three best games, arguably the best game of his career, given the. mistakes given the two-way dominance that he had last night, all the impact, you just look around and it's like, it just can't, it literally can't be that. Like, that's the worst-case scenario. Yeah, exactly. Seeing what he did last night and in the first quarter, first through third and eventually when he went down, he's been going, he was going ballistic and he was playing phenomenal on all ends of the court. You're right. Like, this very well could be, so far, it probably is the best game that he's ever played of his career, whether it be from three, he was wildly efficient hitting the most like gutsy threes early in the shot clock from so far away

and just smacking three after three after three and then seeing what he's been seeing what he was doing facilitating ball of course like we can talk about the defense we can talk about um his interior prince and all that like he's he was all over the place and this was the best version adjacent to him that we witnessed the ever yeah it's just unfortunate the best year of his career they're coming off a championship good thing he got the championship before this occurred so there's that, I guess. It's just unfortunate. This team is obviously in the most win now mode you could possibly be to the most expensive team in the NBA. There was already looming cap issues coming to summer. There's been lots of smoke in the air that there's clearly fire in that

new ownership came in, they bought this team. It's too expensive. They're going to have to shed one of KP or Drew. So when there's already questions in the air and you don't know what you're going to do with this core that has to win now and really has to win this year before somebody has to be moved, highly unfortunate that opportunity to go back to back, which is robbed from the blink of an eye. Now, they're probably more going to win the series regardless. This game was kind of closed up before then, so maybe that's a little dramatic. But either way, you miss out in the rest of this run, what could have been a 3-1 comeback, and now you probably don't even have next year.

So the question isn't even, is this sad? Is it so-and-so? Obviously, it's incredibly unfortunate for one of the young stars in the game to lose a calendar year of his career. I don't know where this can go from here. They're in such a difficult spot with their core being so win now, but they just obviously cannot win now for the at least next year. It's, I mean, Tatum's going to come back and the team's going to be completely different. because they, even if, like, let's say that they won this series and they went back to back,

there's still a high possibility that they broke the team up. And so, like, and we've seen it before, you know, teams that have won championships that haven't felt the need to run it back again because this year was the year where they're like, you know, this whole roster is expensive, but we'll, well, it's okay because you guys can do something special. You guys can do something that teams haven't done in the last six, seven years. We haven't seen a repeat champion since the Warriors. And so to have that opportunity and, you know, like I said, now, now that it's gone, they, they were going to move off of people if they won or not.

And now that, now that they're gone, these new owners are not going to walk in here and be like, yeah, we'll just keep this, this team and pay $600 million in, in payroll for vibes just so that everything could be the same. No, two, maybe three of these players are going to be gone in the next year and a half. I 100% agree. This injury, that was already going to happen. This injury just gave them even more case of reason to do exactly that. And looking forward, me personally, this obviously injury sucks.

But what makes the Celtics future feel at least a little bit better is known that they have their first round picks over the next two years. Now, after that, I believe they, I think it's like 2029 or something like that. They owe the San Antonio Spurs their pick going back from that. Derek White. Derek White trade. Exactly. And so it makes me feel better knowing that they have, they're at least in control of their future for the next two years. but they're clearly going to have to reshuffle and remove some pieces and just be whatever, open to whatever, and prepared to whatever for whatever version of Jason Tatum that you get back.

And even though, so obviously you got to wait see if he gets back. I think we can, we can be optimistic that he'll come back and be Jason Tatum again, right? He's obviously not the most. Yeah, he just turned 27 years old a couple weeks ago. We've seen players come back and be largely okay. There will be some remnant effects. It is in a serious injury. But let's go ahead and get the benefit out.

He'll be fine long term. They have to decide of one. They want to go all in on a full one-year tear-down and kind of treat it like the Golden State Warriors did in that one-tanking year when they won like 17 games, whatever it was, where you tank for one year, you get the number two pick that became James Wiseman, whatever that could be for them.

You could do that and you can say, we'll reload, take one year off, take advantage of us having control of our first-on picks, and then rebuild from there around Jason Tatum and around Jalen Brown. That's easier said than done. It's pretty hard to tear down to that level when you still have Jalen Brown and still have Derek White.

Even more of a reason you've probably got to get rid of Drew Holiday and Chris Os Prusinger as they're, you know, the old money on the team. There's, like, a certain level of balance. You got a strike in this short-term rebuild because you don't want to tear it down too far. But it kind of feels like they can tear the shit down to the studs and rebuild the new in the following year,

and Jason Tandum comes back. And the Warriors, like, they, the Warriors, yes, they were in this position, but they didn't go into that season saying, yeah, we're going to be bad. Steph broke his hand five games in the end of the year, right? They were kind of thrust into that position. And so that, like, the year after that, whenever Steph came back and Clay once again got hurt, they, they were going out. They tried to make the playoffs.

They were in the play in and they were going to rely on Steph Curry to try and just push this team as far as possible. That's what they were going to do. So unless the Celtics are from the top down going to say, yeah, we're going to go ahead and do that. And whenever Tatum gets back, then we'll have all these assets to rebuild. That's a different decision than what the Warriors did in a different situation. I think Brad Stevens is the type of GM though that would do that proactive measure.

Brett Steven seems like he's a type that's going to make... I feel good trusting him to make the smartest decision. Yeah, absolutely. I'd average him. And maybe the smartest decision isn't to tear it down. We'll have to see what the market's like for all these guys. Like, you obviously keep Jaylon Brown. You probably keep Derek White. He's 30.

He'll be good in two years from now. Derek White will probably be good until he's 35. He's that type of player. You 100% to trade you holiday who's old. And Chris Os Porzingis was already not reliable for you. You damn sure don't want to have him be unreliable for you in a year where you're probably not best served trying to compete. So at the very least, you got to trade those two guys.

Is the market even going to be robust for those two guys? I guess you can imagine Drew Holiday, probably fetched some good offers. Does KP have that kind of trade value right now? I don't know. Because of his archetype being big and not a liability defensively and being a shot blocker and also being able to shoot at the way he's been known to at least, I think he's going to be perfect. His trade value is going to be hold up very well.

And a lot of things will be feeding for him personally. If I'm someone like Brad Stevens, I look at this team, and of course, I'm cutting all the loose ends in Drew Holiday, and Chris Austin is like we said, and I'm focusing on rebuilding the Al Horford's of the world. Who can be my next Al Horford, who can be the next Drew Holiday for me? How can I, like, restock and refill up this bench and make this even stronger and prepare myself for this. That's how old for my, I have some value. I'll hope for my fetch something. I'm not going to lie. He's old as hell.

It is hard. But that's a real valuable player to a lot of teams I need to stretch five. Al-Hawfer might have some value on the open market. Exactly. How many guys, if Al-Horfer was, forget 10 years younger, four years younger, right? Three first-on picks. That's what I'm saying. Like, you are not finding centers who can move their feet laterally like this and contest

and be able to move with guards and be able to pop out and hit threes at a high clip and do all that stuff on top of all of the leadership and character stuff that he brings to your team into your locker room. he's probably going to be there because we've seen well hopefully but we've seen how close him and jason tatem are and so like just from like the outsider perspective yeah you know it would be nice to have some homies in the building while you're going through your rehab and not everybody be gone but obviously it's a very it's very expensive to keep the homies around so we'll we'll see how everything goes but it's now this this whole thing is it's obviously tragic but again this is like I don't I don't

I don't know. It's just a lot of people give Jason Tatum shit. And I think that this trade will hope our injury will hopefully like help calm down people a little bit when it comes to it. And like, those on the timeline last night that were clowning them too. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Most of the time, whenever like we're over here showing him, it's never like super serious. Like we actually don't think he's bum, bum or bad or whatever the case may be.

Legitimately, he's gone off to would the best possible start that any young superstar could ever. imagine ever imagine of course things were set things were set up pretty well for them but he had to earn and harness the trustworthiness of being the next superstar while also working on so many aspects of his game whether it be there's a certain point in time i think around like 20 20 21 where he just literally like refused to get to the rim and was not a good rim finish or whatever okay cool next year develops he he fixes that part of his game but a jump shot ends up a little bit gets it ends up getting a little bit of broken, and he puts on a ton of mass and a lot of weight because he's getting to the room by force.

Okay, cool. Two years ago, a lot of people were getting on his ass about, yo, like, your ability to make good late game decisions is so fucking bad. Very next year, we see that start to all come together. And now he's the type of player who's been on five or six all-MBA first teams, routine all-star won an NBA championship. He's always in the conversation for being one of the most valuable players in the league. like he's his resume is astounding yeah he's a player that's every organization's dream he's a player

that's constantly gotten better every single time he's been asked of him constantly risen to the occasion i'm glad you mentioned the fact that like every path that he went down was like he took every step needed to rise to the level of getting to the superstar top five player in the world level went through the hums being a supporting player in 2018 when they were a disaster made his rookie year actually they made a conference finals it was the next year the disaster i should have said at 2019. Supporting player, young All-Star, Superstar, can't be the guy. Oh, he is the guy. Oh, he won the championship. Every single step along the way, he continued to provide value to his organization. So, yeah, I agree with you. Hopefully people kind of, especially the Iron Maness

of his game. He never misses goddamn games. So people are going to feel that. They're going to feel that void in the coming year when he's not there to be consistent for this team. I promise you, you're going to feel it a lot, especially if you see the stuff that you saw last. night from the Boston Celtics over the course of next season, yeah, you're, you're going to feel it a lot because having, having Jalen Brown as your number one for the whole season, especially, like, last, last, you remember that fan club that consistently thought that Jaylon Brown was better than Tatum? Now was your time to shine. Oh, brother. Listen, they have, they are on a one-year prove-a-deal, right? Like, you have to, you have to go out

and show me because Jalen Brown, in this series overall, and especially last night, you saw a lot of his weaknesses be highlighted. You saw some of the shooting. You saw the handle once again be a topic of a conversation and be really, really exposed. And so going through. That's how the injury happened last night. Huh? That's how the injury happened last night. Exactly. Off of a Jalen Brown turnover. And so going going into next year, you're going to be rolling on Jalen Brown ball. The good thing is, and this is the good and bad thing for the Celtics and for Celtics fans. that the Eastern Conference is not strong. So in a situation where you might want to tank,

you might not be able to do. Like the East might give you, you know, six or seven wins that you might not want. Yeah. Yeah, it's obviously, just fresh reaction. It literally is the news finally was confirmed today. We'll see. There's so many options that Celtics can go down with this roster

and the amount of assets they have or don't have in any different areas. It's going to be a big, big offseason for Brad Stevens. If he navigates his correctly and takes advantage of this, unfortunate opportunity that he's been granted to tank and maybe get a top pick in a pretty goddamn stack draft if that goes to plan could be a masterclass but either way highly unfortunate no matter what you don't ever want to lose a season of contention when you have a win now roster exactly but maybe they'll find a way to find as much value as they possibly can at the worst case scenario they've done this before though over the last what i guess

18 years now you had the big three trade that they were able to swindle and you know get kg off off of, you know, off of the Tim Wolves on a golf course deal type, you know, type thing. You have that. You're able to get out of that, completely fleece the nets and get all of your picks. A couple years after that, you have the Isaiah Thomas situation

where you know that he has a jacked of hip. You're able to flip him for Kyrie Irving and then start moving on into a new era. Obviously, it didn't go well, but still getting Kyrie on your team is massive. And then to navigate from that and having a player of Kyrie's caliber at the peak of his powers really kind of, you know, disintegrate your team structure and then you're able to flip and keep moving and keep evolving.

It feels very natural. Yeah. That, like, in two years, the Celtics are going to be, you know, solid and right back to where they normally are. Yeah, he slipped his way into, out of a Kyrie Irving, stumbled into Kimball Walker, okay, ran into someone like Malcolm Brogden. And, of course, Marcus Smart was there. And that's when he ran on the one, like, a defensive player of the year. He's one of the most proactive GMs.

And one of, like, he's one of my, the top two shit. Maybe the best GM that the NBA has to offer right now because when it comes to the list of mistakes that he's made, it's not much. Yeah, he's definitely up there. He's definitely a great best on. We'll see where they go from here. Recent donations for move on to the next topic. Shout out to Mo Butler for tipping $5. Shout to Kevin Gillickie for donating $20.

He said, Donovan, your boys got it. I'm room for the Knicks from now on. but you know things are bad when the only source of happiness over the entire summer is the fucking Red Sox. But Tateen will be back. Some long summer. Are the Red Sox are disaster right now? Yeah.

I don't know anything about baseball. I think so. Shout out to Shiv for tipping $3. Appreciate you. Shout out to Horse of Yokit for $1. And shout out to Jorgon. I can't read that from here. Jorgian K-92 for $10.

Appreciate you all. Yeah, George. All right, man. We talked about the Celtics and the unfortunate injury. We had to get that out of the way. It was the most pressing story of the week. but after that we got to talk about

another story that has changed the landscape of the NBA oh my God Cooper Flag is the Dallas Maverick when you thought

that Nico Harrison would pay the blood debt he pays to the universe for making the worst decision a GM has maybe ever

made in the history of the NBA Carmick debt did him well the universe said we got you Nico

they're being too mean to you and they gave this motherfucker flag the number one pick they had 1.8%

chance of landing this pick in the lottery and it goddamn happened. Oh my God. How are y'all feeling for the Dallas Mavericks fans, for the organization, for Nico Harrison, for Cooper Flag.

How do we tell about this for him from his perspective? Give me all your thoughts. The sensible person in me says, listen, a 1.8% chance is still a chance, right? Why have a lottery if people at the bottom can't win? This is the whole point of having a lottery. The other side of me says, Adam Silver, shout out to you.

You put on your David Stern, having you rig this whole thing, and you got it popping. right you understood you needed views right everyone's been talking about ratings you said i know what to do let's get the let's get the 25 26 year old superstar get them into the biggest market in the league and you know what if you do that guess what another white star for you i got you like the the amount it's very very hard for me to be like yeah like the league is is rigging it da da da but when stuff like this happens you just got to be like hey man maybe maybe they're right

Maybe they're on to something. Yeah. I don't believe it's rigged, but I cannot argue with you. If you want to say it is and you want to go that route, go for it. It's more fun for me to let you have it. I don't want to be like, you got it, man. It's so hard to argue that it is not rigged, bro. How the hell do you, again, do one of the biggest sins in the history of basketball, probably the biggest,

and trading away someone like Luca Dodgers after you're freshly off of your first finals trip since, like, 2011? And you're rewarded with one of the best. Best white, best white, white prospects of all time. What the fuck? And you're given and you're allowed to go ahead and follow through. Triple white. You're allowed to follow through with the history of what your organization basically stands on, bro. He is not only as soon as fit on any basketball team or whatever the case may be, but especially on this team too.

Like, he is what exactly someone like Nico Harrison would salivate over. you can't tell me that there was no dirty work behind the scenes and I'm a fan of it because at the end of it is what everybody says the game is a the game is not only about a bucket it's about a dollar it's about a dollar I'm totally you guys want to jokingly say it's really play whatever I'm dead serious it's right I don't care the thing is I'll lay out the I'll lay out the case specifically for this one first I get it go for it it's fun to say talk about it in that way I it absolves Nico Harrison of blame to be like

listen man that was the plan the league said we got to get look at LA and they'll reward you Nico always knew it was calculated no this motherfucker's an idiot and he got insanely lucky nobody's ever gotten this lucky in their life to make up for the worst decision ever to put yourself back on track

after you fought valiantly to be off the track the motherfucker made a deal with the devil I don't give a damn bro and he lost on both fronts he got nothing out of that relationship the devil ran through him The one ran train on that person.

And yet, he got rewarded and bailed out. So you can call it rigged. I call it a lucky motherfucker getting lucky. It is so much, so much worse when you frame it that way that this wasn't some higher powers saying we got you. It was the universe bailing this idiot out. The, those reporting today that said the Mavericks are taking Cooper flag and they are not entertaining any trade from no more pink.

Nico made it very, very clear. I'm not doing, I'm not, I'm not that dope. I'm taking Cooper. Now, the naive people who say that the league is not rigged will tell you that eight of the last 11 lotteries have been won by teams with the highest odds. However, in the last, since 2018, I believe. When they change the lottery odds.

Yes, when they flattened the lottery odds. Because before that, the worst team had a 25% chance of getting the top pick and then they came. That's a meaningful difference of what it is now. People don't realize. That's a big difference. It's over a 10% difference. Yeah.

And so now the top three teams have a 14% chance. The last three times, right, it was, it was like the team with a 14% chance, got it. Before this year and before the Hawks, the last three times did it. And then before that, it was the pelicans who rose up and got there. Yes. And guess what? Ironically enough, the pelicans that year were dead last in revenue. They were.

Dead last in revenue, right? They were. And this is, see, I'm glad you said that. This is what I'm talking about, keeping you a third eye open. Now, again, that's what the naive people will tell you. It's like, listen, the top people still get it. However, by flattening the odds, you can make it more deceitful to slide people up or down, right? Exactly.

That's what I'm saying. Exactly. If I'm a cheater, hey, man, I ain't going to lie back in my entire college tenure, I cheated like a motherfucker. A plus is straight on everything. I told you that. I told you that. But I could not cheat consistently. I told you.

I could not cheat consistently, though. We know. Did he just try to diamond test my degree? I told you. We can address that later. But in general, the best cheaters in the world don't get straight A plus is on everything. You get like an 89, 88, maybe a 78 here and there. But for the most part, you're going to make sure you do what needs to get done.

Yeah. Well, we can talk a lot about the state lottery after this conversation because it's actually quite interesting. Is this flattened lottery odds even good? Do we like the conceptually? But we've got to talk about the fact that the Dallas Mavericks and Tire, just like, the runways of what they can do as a franchise is completely different than it was yesterday. Like, they hoped they'd get lottery luck, right? They obviously knew they had a good pick and it was hoping it can be high. Maybe we can inject Dylan Harper into this.

Inject Vijayette's comb into this. Who knows? We'll see. Maybe we'll get lucky. I can't imagine they ever dreamed to getting this goddamn lucky. This changes everything. Their whole thing with trading Luca, we want to win now. We want to win now with defense.

veterans. We have two 33-year-old stars. We're riding with them for however long the window is. And obviously that window got fucking shattered by Kyrie Irving's injury. Now it's incredibly complicated because you still got the healthy 33-year-old star. You have the other one that will come back probably towards the playoffs. And you have a young probably star. We all think Cooper Flag will be a goddamn superstar who is an amazing defender, does fit his ethos, but he's goddamn the youngest player in the draft almost. He's 18 years old. How does that fit this timeline? Do they change that idea? Do they get sensible? Do they trade Anthony Davis and just say we're building around Coop?

No. Probably not. No, it makes sense because, again, you know that he's ready-made and like, obviously there's always a learning curve with young players in their defense, but he, if nothing else, right? Any and all questions about Cooper Flag have been on the offensive side of the ball. And it's not even like, is he going to be a good offensive player? It really is, is he going to be 30 points or like that. What version of a great player is he going to be?

Yeah, that's the only question. the floor that everyone is basically at consensus at is that worst case scenario is going to be like a camera guard net situation where he's going to score like 22 23 points per game and he's going to be one of the more one of the most impactful defenders in the league that is amazing and so to add to add his defense with with anthony davis with derrick lively with everything that they're doing his offense whatever level you think at it's going to take his time it fits exactly And I view this similar to similarly how the Boston Celtics initially when they signed Kyrie Irving and they still had a super young Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown. Tatum had the ability to take his time and wasn't rushed into any start.

Now, obviously, the whole thing was congluted and they just like the whole recipe was fucked because of the Kyrie's Kyrie thing. But looking back at this now, this feels like more of a reformed version of what Boston did back in the day in terms of. NBA in terms of hierarchy and now Cooper Flag is given all the time in the world still behind not only one superstar but two superstars in AD and Kyrie Irving to like slowly ingratiate himself into being that guy. It's a little more of a muddy version of that I think so instead of the other way around because that team kept a ridiculous amount of future for Sean picks and had all their own picks when they added Kyrie. So they had Tatum, Brown, Smart, Kyrie and Gordon Hayward now Horford. they did the two timelines thing at once while also having all the assets in the world to continue to go on any other path they wanted.

This team is like fully all in. No young core, no future picks of that matter. I think they have a little bit. It's Max Christine and that's it for like young core. And their pick situation is muddy at best and now you inject Cooper flag into that. So it's kind of the opposite, I think. It's a little bit muddy that you can one,

try to fit Cooper flag into this current timeline and just say we'll win around the current stars we have, take it from wherever it goes after these two years. We'll take that when time comes. but sure you can do that I guess they could win a chip if Kyrie comes back 100% they'd be in the mix

they'd be the fucking fantastic team but you do a Cooper flag and you as soon as you get a talent of that level you're immediately responsible for taking the entirety of their career into account and planning for the future

so you don't enter a point where they turn 26 and you got goddamn nothing and you got to move them in five years he'll be 24 entering his prime Anthony Davis will be 38 Kyrie will be 38

those motherfuckers will be retiring what will they have in that time because they can't spend these five years gaining a young core they won't be able to have their picks to like slowly build it with high picks a lot of those picks are gone or pick swap so they have to really really be nimble in how they decide to take this into account because you got to try to obviously win now because that's where your roster is but you got to keep some eye to the future yeah but i honestly think that i kind of think it's a little bit overblown because i think i think cooper flag is he's in a

great position we've seen kairie be able to play off ball right Right. Like, we've seen him be able to do that. We know that Anthony Davis can be very dominant offensively, but he is not dumped the ball into AD or give AD the ball at the top of the key. He's going to go get 30 every single night in that way, right? Obviously, he can score. He can score 30. He can average 27, but, you know, being like primary creator number one, that's not him.

I think that having two years, let's just say two years of building up Cooper flag, whatever this window is, having him in a team. that has championship expectations and championship level stars in Kyrie and Anthony Davis, that's just as important in terms of the intangibles, work ethic, all that stuff. How many times do we see insane talents go to dumpsters like Charlotte and like Washington and the careers don't pan out anything? I think the fact that you can give him a really good foundation. And in two years, whenever Tyree Urban is aging as he is right now,

whenever Anthony Davis continues to age. Now you're in a spot where Cooper Flag, you have grown with these two guys here. You know how they play. And now your on ball chops can continue to grow. And by that point, oh, no, he's going to be 20 years old. Like, he's still going to be so young to where everything can still happen in Dallas for him. Yeah, I get that's great in theory.

But let's say those guys are going to be on the way out. You're not going to be able to trade them and reload around Cooper Flag. It's going to be you've got to replace these guys in free agency. You've got to have young pieces that develop to take their spots. Maybe Derek lively is that. Maybe they get other good hits. You never know, but it's not a given. So, I'm not, no, it's a great thing.

They got Cooper Flag. It's fantastic. In their win now mode, it's still a great thing. They're even better now. But it is a complicated situation that they have to navigate with some tact. I don't even think it's that complicated, to be honest with you. I feel like it's like the most straightforward situation. Trade AD.

Like, you have your guy. You have the guy. You have an oldish supporting cast around you. But also going forward to. Yes, like they don't have full control of their picks, but they have picks available to their display. All that means that, yo, you have to be really on your P's and Q's when it comes to evaluating these young players. Their pick, their PICS tackle restarts completely in like 2031, but going on forward, they have, they don't have control of their future picks. They have picks, but it's not their own pick.

You know, they're at the, they're at the knees of O.K.C. and a bunch of other Hornets from the PJ, they got a swap for them. Yes, exactly. But honestly, right now, if I'm them in the future, you have to be your. right super nimble on your feet. And if you have to eventually, I don't know, I'm not saying you should do this, but if Derek lively has to be traded for the sake of maximizing someone like Cooper flag and what he does offensively, do that. Same thing for PJ Tucker. Do that and accumulate more assets and just make smart moves before they, they like, you shit yourself all over the floor. Yeah, it's also just, yeah, my bad. It's also just where the, where the league is

right now. I'm at this point, I don't think I'm ever really worried about like, oh, are they they're going to be able to retool. Some star gets upset. There's always going to be a, like, there's going to be an all-star caliber, whether it be low-level, high-level, right? That wants to play with it one day. Yeah. You are going to be able to trade for a player like that in any given time.

And by the time, Cooper Flag is ready to be top dog number one, there's going to be somebody there for the trading. Yeah. Most time, sometimes though, we see teams like the Anthony Davis Pelicans who were drafted in no young court, but the two. good right away like luka they know they tried the kp things or one swing with their picks didn't work if kairi did a torpedo his trade value it would have been kind of tough to get a championship court around luca but he did there's people who do that all the time people always refuse to get

it happens shit happens every four years there's always a superstar who doesn't say things the media get traded for nothing i mean there might be so but things always take take itself like the kevin like with the kevin around thing in phoenix like k k k d devon booker yonis now Like, should just be in after me. Those were the fucking are traded for a lot. DeMitts. Those guys are cheap. Deerrin Fox.

Like, that's what I'm saying. Even guys on that level, you can, you can go out and find somebody that's right there. That's, what, the 27th best player in the league and create some type of a duo. There's going to be a window. And so my, my honestly, biggest thing that I'm very curious to see is how the mass fans react to this franchise over this. the next year and a half. Yeah. Because you obviously, like, you traded Luca.

You were so out there bringing coffins to the stadium. We're so done, everyone, the death threats and Nico Harris and all that. You have Cooper Flagg right here. The team is going to be pretty solid next year. You know, yeah, they'll be fine. They'll be in the mix, playoff, in the playoff mix, whatever. Are they going to embrace Cooper Flagg? Are they going to embrace the match them matters?

Yes. 100% they will. Now they can stop pretending to be Lakers fans because they're going to get a new great white, hope to latch on to. This is the best thing ever for Mavericks fans. They get to be saved from their personal eternal hell that they were going to be in for the next five years rooting for a team that obviously can't win. Now they can lash on to a new young star. This will save the fan base, I think. Now when the Lakers come into town. And Luca gets Cooper on the switch. Bro. I don't think you understand. They're going to say fuck Luca so fast. Once they

they see Cooper take shape and look like a future star, fans are fickle. They will move on. So Cooper is that level of player. If this one, was like a different tier below like i'd be like maybe it's you know we'll see they got to pick number two it's different cooper is cooper he's gonna be a star star it's gonna be that's gonna be different you know what's so funny the dallas mavericks news landing the number the number one overall pick is of course the great great conversation it's the most shocking thing ever but it completely swept under the rug the san antonio spurs yep lucking the fuck up and getting pick number two let's talk about the rest is lottery chat well i'm gonna reach some donations real quick you guys

know who is your biggest winners and losers of the lottery so far what's your biggest takeaways then we'll talk about the rest of this first shout out to lincoln for tipping five dollars we appreciate you he said it was his birthday a few days ago and he got a t3 shirt happy birthday shout out to you nice he said also do you guys think mo says when it comes to or of the world more that's a close one people sleep on the when it comes to when it comes to when it comes to has high volume but they're very much together when it comes to the blink of the world yeah which has more scalability I think it comes to when it comes to you.

Yes. When it comes to you. Exactly. Shout out to Rasta. I don't know what that says. For tipping $12 and $34. Appreciate to you. Shout out to Johnson for $5.

Shout out to I of Avavacado for $15. And yeah, that's everybody. We appreciate y'all. All right. Let's talk about the rest of this goddamn lottery results because it's quite interesting. The worst three teams in the league all fell out of the top four. This is the first time that's happened. Highly, highly, highly unfortunate.

And for that to happen, obviously the Mavericks moved up to number one. The Spurs moved up to number one. The Spurs moved up to number one. Number two, dude, for a good three minutes during that, I was like, oh, my God, we're going to get Wemby and Cooper. This is going to be awesome. Then I happened to the other Texas team, blah. But it almost happened to Spurs. And number three, we got the Philadelphia 76ers.

Seemed like we almost got Cooper coming in to save the immediate era, which also had been pretty cool. Then the Hornets got four, and you see the Jazz Wizards and Pelicans with the 5, 6, 7. I love what Adam Silver said, you know what? Fuck all y'all. We were over here arguing who deserves some like Cooper the most. I was like, maybe the Hornets do you are like, oh, fuck no.

Thank God. Charlotte does not deserve shit. Maybe the Wizards do. They have a cool defensive infrastructure. No one gets the fuck about the Washington Wizards. Utah Jazz. And then Adam Silver just kicked all these motherfuckers down. It's hilarious.

So obviously the next talk of the town became the Spurs at 2. Because in the same day this happened, Shams Serrania reported that, again, this is kind of a nothing burger of report. It was really, really not substantial. But he said that Janus is open to the idea of playing elsewhere next year. which he's not committing to anything.

We'll see where it goes. He still has meetings to make with the bucks monitor the situation, but he wouldn't report that for no reason. So clearly they wanted that specific light verbiage to be out there. If you ever had to drop a Yonis trade package, the number two pick and the number 14 pick is a damn great place to start.

Ah, bro. Yonis to the West is so cataclysmic for the East. This would be so mad. I mean, if he went, if you went to the East, it would be the worst of the East is but like the East was able obviously we all knew that it was bad for a long time but having LeBron in the conference

still kept it up right could you still have a finals contender and somebody who's going to make deep runs that you know it's still fairly respectable but if he goes out there why if you are in the West why would I ever pick a team in free agency to go out West

if I'm trying to win like I'm good and with Tatea missing the whole year the East is nothing it's just going to be The Cavs and the Pacers being the shit out of everybody and Joelle and be coming back. Oh, and the next effort. I was like 14B.

That wasn't even my ass. It wasn't on purpose. Yeah. I love that. But like, the Cavas might win 68 games. This man said, Joelle and B before the team

that's going to counter finally. And B's knee is falling completely off the bone. He's like, yeah, he's still dominating. It was not a purpose. But like, tough. Tough. I mean, shout out the Knicks.

I mean, whatever. But it's not going to be a stat conference to say the least. It'll be easy pickings. It's like the first round of the playoffs is going to be a bloodbath. Might be four sweeps. You might have the goddamn Brooklyn Nets in the playoffs next year. It's going to be ugly.

I don't know. How do you guys feel about this new lottery system being flattened off? Like we said, the bottom three teams fell out of the lottery. And there's a lot of debate. People were saying, how do you expect these shitty small markets to get better if they don't consistently have the natural system them that every other league has, that if you are poor, you're rewarded with the best players

so you can have some parity over time. These teams with the way free agency works and the way star power works in the NBA, they're not going to pick the goddamn jazz. They're not going to pick the goddamn Pelicans. So if they're not going to have a good chance of getting a top four pick or not even just a good chance, a guaranteed chance, how can they rebuild? Some people say boo-hoo. The NBA doesn't want tanking to be how you rebuild. They want this to be a lottery. It's supposed to be random. Where do you all fall in that debate? How do you feel? When it comes to me personally, I think that, yes, like the odds probably should be reverted back to what I once were or hell, maybe even do it NFL style and just be like, okay, like, worst record, you get

the, like, it's chronological, worst record, you get the best pick and so on and so forth. Maybe not to that's another thing about it, because with the way NBA teams got to tanking, aka Sam Hinky especially specifically, back in 2013, 2012, or whatever the year might be, teams can get really egregious. and I think it needs to stay that way because right now we're about to witness. And actually, like, most star talented star players are going to be revert to the Western conference because of better weather markets, whatever the case may be. But because of the predicament that we're in now as a league, we're about to see the most

lopsided talent disparity, probably in fucking history world when it comes to these two conferences. And I think my predictions over the next two, three years where things are going to change in terms of the lottery. And I fully believe in that because it's a complete. bullshit if I'm a Utah jazz friend or a Charlotte Hornets fan or even maybe even the Washington Wizards in their new regime of a front office who's been doing the right thing ever since they got rid of Bradley Beale like you feel so hopeless because this is how you should rebuild

I understand like the league hates watching teams to sell out but I think that that's like that's literally the only way and that's the only way and there's no real ethical way to bring bring things back out because the rich are rich and the poor important sometimes you've got to do what you got to do. And at this point is to embarrass yourselves in an organization for a year, maybe two years max, and then things will be back up. Yeah. I mean, also people will say draft better, develop well. Yeah, obviously. If you can draft the star number six, it's possible. It's obviously possible. But the point isn't, is it possible? Obviously, teams can get better with the system. When you look at the things, you got look at it in macro trends over time. Obviously,

the higher the pick, the better the odds are, that person being a star. So, So while it's not impossible for them to do well from the five, six, seven spot and find their Donovan Mitchell, find their countless other stars you can name that got drafted outside of that. Very possible. It's obviously going to happen less than if you were to do a traditional system like every other league that just does it in reverse order. There's a reason you see more parity in other leagues probably. So I don't know. It's interesting debate. I think it is like logically kind of fucking weird that we do a lottery. But it's so ingrained in the history. It's never going to change. But like it doesn't like make sense to do a lottery, you know? I don't know why it started for entertainment or whatever we're here now it's part of the history that's how the game works but it is kind of weird when you think about it yeah you're listen because of the nature of basketball like like everyone's been comparing it to the NFL and yeah but like you can't tank in the NFL because if you do you're going to die like like you can't you can't purposely go out there and and do that and also you have only 16 games it's a much different structure right And literally every play is a car crash.

So again, you can't really do that. In the NBA, you can come into the season and say, we are going to win 10 games this year and we're going to do it. As long, in the NBA, as long as you have a draft, and as long as you say, the worst team is going to have the number one pick or a chance at the top pick, teams are going to turn around, put their hands on the knees, and bust it down for the number one pick.

They're going to do everything that they can. And as they should. It is, it is what it is. I understand that it's egregious whether you have the old, the old setup where you have 25%, whether you have this setup where even at 14%, which again is a massive drop off from 25%. Even at that, you have teams like the Utah Jazz coming up with fake injuries and the Sixers doing all of this crazy stuff to really put out some of the worst lineups that we've ever seen in the sport at a chance to get. the number one pick. And so the only way that you,

the only way that none of this is going to happen is you get rid of the draft entirely and that's just not going to happen. And I think you probably do need a lottery in the NBA just because there's so many games that in NFL, if somebody wants to try to lose five straight games and play their backups,

it's only a month. NFV, NBA, 82 games, thank you for that long. That's, you can't have that. You can't have a team trying to go 0 for 82. That's a lot different from 0 for 16. That's a lot of games. I mean, people do it in,

in baseball, shed salary and stuff and that's and it's not a very healthy league right now it's a i mean there's a lot of yeah a lot of issues but it's like 162 games being able to go that also sucks to be on a bad baseball team yeah you're losing every day for six months that's terrible so obviously we don't want that in the NBA i understand that's why the lottery exists just for the nature of lots of fucking games are played but um i don't some people say that this system with the flattened odds makes it so they don't reward blatant tanking i guess i think we've just seen more teams are won the tank because they know if they sneak into the 10 11 12 spot they might be the

hawks might be the mags and move up to one yeah so i think we see a higher volume of teams taking i don't know if it's like saving it so less teams are tanking i don't know if that's actually the outcome i know people have this like visceral response they're like good you tank egregiously you shouldn't get rewarded i don't that's not good for the game you're not seeing less tanking with this i don't think i agree but it's a it's a it's a balance and the way that we do it right now is really weird because The one of the main things that Silver has always preached is that he wants parity across the league. Yeah. And so you're seeing with this lottery and with the CBA, where do you want that parody to come from?

And there's the idea that you don't, like you don't want to reward incompetence, which is whenever teams are bad for years on end and they tank. Like that's what that's what it feels like. You say that. That's what I'm saying. That's what people say. But it's like this is, this is how you kind of keep. So do you want to force, force parity from the bottom up or take? it from the top down where you're not letting the top teams be good for a long time because of the CBA, that's the discussion that you have to figure out. People say that don't want a rewarding

competency and like, I usually think that too, but listen, man, there's going to be bad teams. There's going to be teams that aren't as good, aren't as bredded. It's not, I don't think it's productive for the league to be like, you suck. Stay trash. Continue to be that. How you fix incompetency and make it so fans don't have to watch their team be the 15th seat every year is you get them the best players. That happens in the NFL. There's incompetent-ass franchises across the NFL. Cheapscape motherfuckers. The Bengals don't pay anybody. They're cheap as hell. They did terrible. They got Joe Burrow. They're terrible again. They got Jamar Chase. And now they've been competent strictly because of that. Not because it did anything right outside of that.

So at a certain point, I understand not wanting to reward incompetence. But I think it's important for the league to not let fans have to watch incompetence every year. Yeah, I agree with you. And to double down on your side as well, I think the NFL in general is a terrible comparison when it comes to talking about the draft odds and shit like that because of course it's a numbers game the NFL has what seven NBA seven first round or seven rounds of the draft continuously compared to just like one two I guess that the NBA is making a two-day thing now these days that it just takes one specific individual to change the entire course of an organization's trajectory over the next 15 10 years bro the bank didn't have the number one

four picks they'd be winning two games a year if they got a lucky and drafted at the number seven spot every year and drafted bullshit yeah they win no games i think they've been doing entirely too much when it comes to the cba thing i'm not a humongous fan of what they did as of late when it comes the second apron thing i think you're doing it they're doing the entire too much and they're being way to greedy with how they're trying to control and have these organizations build themselves that's where that's where this whole thing that's that's where it becomes a issue for me. Yeah. And the point that you said about the Bengals, that is exactly the point, is that you can have the number one and the number four overall pick. You can get a top five

quarterback and one of the best wide receivers in the league. You can have two of the best five players at their position. And you still have to develop them. You still have to get a team around them. Like, yes, that's where it starts, but you have to give them an opportunity. And so now, like, in the NFL, I guess the Bengals are just the post job for this, right? We're just, Piece of shit franchise. Yeah, we're just using them. But you have a small market team that has an opportunity to do that. And one of the main reasons why the NFL is able to be as big is because every league matters.

And like, it would be cool if Charlotte mattered. But they are at a disadvantage because, one, they suck and they've sucked for a long time. And because, you know, small market bias, all the other stuff, giving them an opportunity to be good. And imagine if you did have Cooper Flag in Charlotte, that would be an opportunity for the league to say, look at this market. We're going to big up the Hornets. We're going to do all of this other stuff. And then that now puts the pressure and the onus on the Hornets to say, we have this talent. We have to grow.

We have to develop them. And it gives them an opportunity. And that is just, that's just good business. That's good for the health of the league. But there's so much more that goes into creating a champion that even comprehensive. competent teams, you know, it sucks that it happened, but even teams like, like the Seltz, you have one of the best teams that, that you've seen in the modern NBA history and something while like a Jason Tatum injury can go down before you get to a champion. Everything has to go

right. Giving a team an opportunity through the draft, I'm with you. I don't think it rewards incompetence. I think it, I think that's the correct way to go about creating parody and elite. Yeah. I think obviously the NBA to NFL is a hard comparison because the nature of the games just so different. The nature of the cultures are so different. And basketball in general is a big sample-sized sport. There's 150 possessions in a game. The better team is more often going to make more shots than the worst team. The NFL, there's just a lot more variance in that game because it's a small sample size. Every team gets like seven drives for some slow game. So crazy shit happens. If you're a bad team in that, you're just way closer to being a striking range of making the

playoffs than any NBA team is compared to the teams that are actually in the playoffs. So apples to oranges, you can turn things around way easier in that sport compared to the NBA. So obviously they're not going to be run in the same exact way. The fans are going to treat things very differently. So you can't exactly do that comparison. But I don't know. I don't love the flattened odds. I'm not saying they should not do a lottery or anything.

But I understand it. Then Bay is a good place right now. So I don't think it's like horrendous. Like parity's good. We have parody. I don't feel like we're better off than we were five years ago with these flat and odds. I feel like shitty teams are just going to contain to be shitty. And the fans of the Hornets are going to have a terrible next seven years with little hope besides praying we get lucky.

Yeah. Because they had the top six pick and, like, they fumbled it this last year as well. So it's like, you know, you still have to do the thing. Yeah. But shout out the Mazz fans and shout out the Hawks fans for getting lucky. And listen, for everybody that gets screwed over in those terrible teams, there's some mediocre teams that get life injecting to them on the other side of that. So I guess it goes back and forth.

Someone said, OK, Lakers guy. Wouldn't it be a very Lakers thing for me to not care about these small teams? I feel like I'm doing the opposite of what you're suggesting. I feel like I should say fuck these small teens if I'm such a Lakers guy. They also gave you guys the number two pick like three times and five years. Listen, if they didn't have flattened dogs, who wouldn't have got LeBron because we wouldn't have got Lonzo and Brandon Ingram. That's true.

So loosely talking here, if you guys were the San Antonio Spurs, what were your prerog to go? Yeah, let's go back to that. Yeah. They had the number two pick. We did our musing about the nature of the lottery. What should the spurs do? And should they get Yonacinacupo?

Let's do it. why not right I've been I've been very aggressive with Wemby I think and like having him on your team

and seeing the ascension that he's already made you should go ahead and do it and you have you have Deerrin Fox right I don't care

what you think about like is it gonna fit that I get talent in the building and we will figure the rest out later if I have an opportunity to get

the second best player in the world, I'm going to do that. Yeah. Well, what do you want to see them do? Because obviously they could take Dylan Hartford, too. They could take Ace Bailey. They could take whoever they want, maybe trade back a little bit

and take somebody who fits them better. Maybe they want to get too big and they draft. Come on. Maybe they do get Ken Cunupple. They treat back for him. They have options at their disposal. Do you want to see them do that

or do you want to see them trade this pick for a star, whether it be yonche or somebody else? I will say for the history of the Spurs organization, they've been known to not not make any major trades for any star ever until like four or five months ago there's a new set of arms in there um greg popovich is also now a president as well as we all know he's no longer coaching and i will say if yonis is available just like you donovan i'm doing whatever it takes to snatch him away from the milwaukee bucks and if i'm the

Milwaukee Bucks, I'm pulling their entire arm, trying to get almost everything I can for this trio from that, from that organization. Now, he is 31 years old. Not old. 110% correct. He got old, but also when he comes to his play style, I have real questions when it comes to how he will age, whether or not that will be graceful or not. But that's not the fucking question because when right now, if you speak, it is, it is a

question. It is, it is, it's semi-question. But when be right now, if he speak, he's probably going to be like a top. eight player in the world next year. And having Yonis just finally had his first healthy playoff run, I will do anything. I'll move hell on earth to go ahead and get them because if you look at who's available at number two, and just the rest of this draft,

there's, like, specifically at number two, Dylan Harper necessarily doesn't fit perfectly with what you have going on. You just traded for something like D.N. Fox. I'd rather wash my hands clean and get that another humongous talent injection. so you can be seriously taken in the Western Conference next year and waste no more time and do what needs to get done.

The age thing is the question, though. Like, you have, if you get Yonis, you have to say, we want to have a five-year window. Like, Yonis is a freak athlete. Freak athletes typically age well, barring injury. Like, they stay a freak for longer than you would think

and they have a little bit more of a long problem. Freaks, stay freaks. Facts. Freaks be freaking it up until they're mid-40s. Look at Shannon. So obviously players are, if you look at a John Wall, John Wall is somebody who is relying on his athleticism and when it went, it went.

But he's like a good athlete. Yeah. Someone like Giannis is like the best athlete of all time. So he's more likely to age graciously, I think, because even if he loses a little bit of a step, he's still more athletic than everybody. It's like while LeBron was 36 still dunking like that. So I do have faith that he'll play well until he's 35. So a five-year window is a good window to fit around Wembe. That's not bad at all.

And I don't think staying in number two ensures you have like a longer window than that. It's not like Dylan Harper is a sure thing superstar. That right there is that you don't know what Dillon Harper is yet. And two, if you do take that timeline, you say, you know, we're going to bet on Dillon Harper, we're going to bet on Staphan Castle. And in two to three years, we're going to be ready to contend and we'll have this core. You're going to have to pay Wembe. You're going to have to pay Dillah Harper. You're going to have to pay Staphan Castle.

You are going to have this core that is going to be extremely expensive where if you do this right now and you go get, You go get Janus. You still have, at least you'll have this year where you have Wemby not on a max deal. You potentially can have another year. You have some flexibility to where you can have the second best player in the world and arguably a top 10 player in the world in Wemby. We've seen the return of the double big. You have the double bigs in the Leroux.

We think Wembe can be the best player in the world. So let's make that part clear. You could have the two best players in the world in three years. So if Yonis in three years, it's like, oh wow, Janus is starting. to slow down. Guess what? We have this 7-5 demon who's scoring 24, getting 12 rebounds, getting five blocks a game.

Also, he can shoot three, so the spacing is fine. Yeah. Spacing is crazy. Getting Yannis makes sense. And then on top of those two things, we talk about athletic freaks. Deering Fox is going to be faster the day he died. He having Janus and having Wembe and having just downhill demon. But do you think you can get Yonis without giving up someone like Deer and Fox?

Oh, definitely. Yeah. You want to go there. Why would the Bucks want Dair and Fox in that situation? You can have the number two pick. We can have a conversation if that includes. So it's the package loosely to you guys. To Castle 14 salary.

But like those two elite picks, probably get other picks swaps to two because you've got to load them up a picks. But two 14 Castle and then whatever other small stuff needs to be stacked up to get there. Which is the best you are going to. It's a great deal. Yeah. If you're the Bucs, you can restart with Castle and Harper. It's a good place to start.

Yeah, two Lorry picks, the rookie of the year. the number two overall pick and then others hell of shit too yeah so the question is i think obviously yannis wembe gives you the ceiling necessary makes it diana fox trade a little bit more redundant but if it doesn't work you could always reshuffle that piece eventually so that's fine you don't got to worry about that guess what half bag dive half bag dive we're going to the basket you'd be amazing the question is their roster is still pretty far away their roster outside their top guys isn't good yet that was a big thing i think we saw in the first half of the midway through the season before wemby got hurt after that crazy start

Sorry to say normalize, they don't have a bench, really. They have four good players and a few young guys that could go either way, but we're still waiting to see how they react and who they are. If you get Yonatrick contending this year, you have to try to win a championship this year. You don't waste a single year with Yonis. That bench is not ready to win a championship. You get rid of all those assets for Yonis. I guess if you keep Sohan and Vassel and other stuff, maybe you trade them for some veterans, reshuffle things.

Maybe you keep Vassel. Actually, you might have to go for money. Whatever. You have to do a lot of other work around that. And if you're blowing your entire load for Janus, that might be kind of hard to become a deep team, which we're seeing in the playoffs this year. You need depth.

It matters. But Janus and Wembe is a little different. It's the best duo in the league immediately. So I don't know. I'd rather start from, we have Yonis and Wemby. Let's figure it out rather than we have Wem- or we have Yonis and Wembe and Fox

rather than, okay, we have Wembe Fox. Now we have to find potentially another start or we have to find six more guys who can be reasonable NBA players. Like that can be. That's not easy though. You said like the stars. No, no, that's what I'm saying.

Finding six NBA guys to be, to be championship levels, bench players in depth, that is hard to do. That's very hard. So I would rather, I would rather go and get Janus and then say, maybe instead of six, we only have to find four. Yeah. Because we have Janus and Winby in Fox. And we'll move on from there. Yeah. And now, Janus is the type of player that, like, we're doing, we're saying this equation, like, do you get the star or the depth?

Janus is not just like enter Star X. Like we're not talking about Devin Booker. We're not talking about even DeMitch or even talking about insert star here. Yonis is one of the best players to ever play and he's as good as has ever been. He's a top 20 prime in the history of the league. So maybe the answer is you just do whatever you can to get him and you figure the rest out the fuck later.

That's probably the real answer here. But it's not an easy pat. I think the roster wouldn't be quite as oppressive as you'd want it to be after getting Janus just because of how. Who do you think their lineup would be after the like, initial rough yonest trade i honest makes a lot of money i haven't even looked to see what they'd have to stack up salary wise to get them yeah uh yeah i can't even answer that because i don't even know if it has to include vselle or not okay but it would oh vizel's sold the fuck gone also

in that deal has to be well i think you could probably money or one of a cell or yeah one of a seller step castle money wise i think he has to just be so fucking gone because they have kelden johnson makes money they have um just harrison bar make money real harrison bar makes a little bit of money they have um what's that backup big's name you just playing the trailblazers why am i drawn to blank Drew Banks? Power forward, turn center. No. What the fuck?

Collins. Zach Collins. Yeah, yeah. He makes money. So they did the stack up like all there. Didn't they trade them to the Bulls or something like that? Oh, he's gone. Yeah.

He's gone. Oh, what am I talking about? Yeah. Yeah. So that makes it even harder because that's one more salary I was thinking was still there. So I don't know what the money would look like. They got to get creative. Yeah, that's get creative.

So the roster would be truly gutted and it wouldn't be still young. It's probably a no-brainer. Just get that guy. But I don't know. It would be quite an interesting roster building thing after that. during strange times and bro the NBA just got flipped on its head crazy man crazy can we talk can we talk about a very cool possibility what then nix making the coverage finals nick's wolves in the finals oh like that's it's it's it's actually on on the board now and i actually think that

that it's very cool because the the wolves they're gonna they're gonna win this series the the the worst they can't score jimby buller hit score or chooses not to at least he he he he there's a little bit of grace that I want to give him because obviously he's he's he's obviously not healthy yeah like he's not jimmy from the butt injury yeah he's clearly not he's not he's not what they need him to be nine shots is od it's egregious like I do need you to put up a little bit more shots but the wolves are going to win the series and so they're going to go and they're going to face either okayc or denver in either of those series do obviously I guess I obviously I guess in the Denver one since they've beaten them before.

That's a better conversation. Obviously, we've all maintained OKC's the best team. I think the OKC stuff is interesting now. It is. I think Denver is giving them a tough, tough matchup, obviously. Denver's well suited to clog up the paint and the OKC Thunder haven't been able to make enough shots

to make them pay for it. This series is closer than it has been in terms of like most of the minutes, it looks like OKC's been the better team. They just trolled and they shouldn't be down. It shouldn't be two, too. So I think when they return to normalcy, I think they'd beat the Thunder and the Timberwolves,

but obviously I'm going to think that, you know who I am. Denver versus the Timberwolves would be quite interesting because we know that Timberwolves have had their number last year and then this year in the regular season at times. But Denver, if they get past the Thunder, they have unmatched level of lock-in that they're showing. And this Timberwolves team is going to win this series against the Golden State Warriors.

They haven't been tremendously impressive. So you can't feel great about the momentum. So I wouldn't know which side to go on on that Nuggets versus Timberwolves hypothetical. All of these games, last, The Warriors were up at halftime. And it wasn't until the third quarter that they blew it open. Anthony Edwards went stupid in the third quarter.

Listen, we got to talk about him, too. He's ascending. Oh, my goodness. Listen, this episode, we're going to have a lot to say about Anthony Edwards. We'll get there. We have to have to have conversations. But you're right. Like, the Warriors were up at halftime in this game.

They've been very close in previous games. I don't know, like, obviously the three ones. looks better than what actually is, but I do think that Minnesota, I think right now, I think I would pick them against Denver. Against Denver. The one thing that scares me is that Denver's 2-2 and Yokic is not played well. Well, the Timberwolves, I don't think, have the ability to lock him down the way O'KC does. I know they did good last year, but they did better against the rest of the team they did Yokic.

Yolkich's numbers were so much better in that series last year against them, and Kat isn't there. So Randall's a better fit defensively against teams that are built around mobility. I don't think he's a better fit defensively to stop Yokic per se But obviously they have Gober They know how to defend him They can do a decent job But I think we're seeing quite the like All time great defensive performance right now

Of OKCC locking down Yokic So much is made of Yokch playing like shit And part of this clearly him not being in a good rhythm OKC is putting on a master class To defending this motherfucker He can't move without getting triple teamed So I'm not going to expect any team To have that level of ability to stop Yokic

So I wouldn't use that Like I wouldn't use his bad momentum As a reason to pick against the next round I'm not saying, no, no, that's kind of what I'm saying. Oh, you agree. Yeah, that's what I'm saying is that I think, I think I would take Minnesota right now. However, the fact that Denver is 2-2 and Yokech is playing poorly leads me to believe that the next round, whenever Yoke's like stabilizes or whatever, they have, they have the opportunity to go ahead and beat Minnesota, which is wild because they can make the finals. And your take that you gave us and then gave up on could be right.

they're not being the thunder they're not being the thunder the thunder have to win the series is tied to too obviously we can talk about that one a little bit last game the first day that I stopped my optimisticness

I was in the second quarter I was like fuck this team I can't believe I believe so much in them they're playing so unbelievably stupid they want to lose this game I'm done they deserve to lose they come back and the thunder clutch that game

and they out execute the nuggets in the fourth quarter something we haven't seen all series the only reason it's not three one or 4-0 is because the Thunder sold two fourth quarters with terrible execution mostly on Mark Dagnol and Shea.

They didn't do that in game four, and we saw the worst game of Yoko's career. How confident are y'all right now that Thunder are going to close out of the series winning two out of three at home? 6040? 64, that's it. I mean, it is 2-2. It's 2-2 and you can say like,

oh yeah, you know, like they showed around. That's a big deal. That's a big deal. You have the MVP on your team, Mr. Consistent, and this is that like, seeing Shay. have these performances is something that's not normal. Like we're so used to Shay in every situation rising to the occasion and being so steady

and being all that. And then seeing Mark Dagnall and him kind of fall apart in these moments, it's like, yo, what? Are you good? Like, are you okay? That's what I feel the worst about. Shea, it's mostly about to me that the nuggets are really good at blocking off the paint with their tremendous size.

Yokic is at a great defensive series because they're really asking him to be gigantic in the paint and Aaron Gordon would be gigantic in the paint and they're clogging the passing lanes. They're having Christian Brown and Jamal Murray help with the nail aggressively. They're not letting Shea get anywhere. And the biggest flaw I think we're seeing in Shea's his passing isn't good enough to make them pay. It's been a thing for day since day one for sure. And they're exposing that. But the Nuggets are really good at that specific scheme because Yokic is really good at playing those passing lanes down there. Most teams aren't going to be as effective of stopping Shea scoring that aggressively. The biggest thing is these motherfuckers cannot make shots

around him. They've had terrible shot making. And Mark Dagnol has had some pretty poor, performances. I actually have questions about him and his just late game decision making on who to play. He's given Lou Dort so much leash to be a brick this fourth quarter. This game got won because he finally benched Lou Dort and put Caruso in case and Wallace up there and that's why they won.

Took him a while to get there. That game three they lost, those motherfuckers ran a basic pick and roll switching Chey on Jamal Murray every time and letting Shay try to cook him one-on-one for like nine straight possessions and didn't work a single time. And Mark Dagnol just kept letting him try into overtime. I was like, why are you letting him do this?

Why are you continuing to run the two bigs while he does this? So the spacing is terrible. It was so stupid and they just let Shea do the stupidest thing he could think of for over and over again. And I honestly blame Mark Dagnall for allowing him to do that more than I blame Shea. Like it was nonsense. Yeah. Yeah.

I understand that. That 100% makes sense. I agree with you. I've had questions about Mark Dagnall. And I think this series overall, he's been outcoached pretty much every game. What all it just comes down to is specifically I can revert to. last game that we watched um what won them this game is okay c was a okay c was able to get into the bonus i think so early into the fourth quarter maybe like seven or six six minutes into it because

of a stupid russia westbrook steel attempt on chae and then that just led to like an avalanche of opportunities to be made on the points uh opportunities to be put on the board for the denver for the for okayc and thus we see oh denver nuggets we see the denver nuggets and Nicole Yorker specifically, like, let loose intensively on defense and everything just, like, swung way open. Yeah. Yeah, I haven't really seen any reason to be concerned about the Thunder yet, besides them shooting themselves in the foot. Like, the, you said the Denver Nuggets are out coaching them? I guess, but like the Nuggets are kind of just like, they only have one move.

And it's to do this aggressive help off, destroy the paint, defense, run this zone to not let Shea slash and say the shooters can't make the shots. and it's just working because the shooters can't make the shots like there hasn't been a tremendous amount of adjustments it's just they haven't been executing

the Thunder like they're really letting the Nuggets stay in this game and the series to say if both things are even I feel a lot better about the way the Thunder

have been able to eliminate Yokic and how sustainable that's been because there's nothing the Nuggets can do adjustment wise they have six playable players

there's no other things they could do if the Thunder win lose this next game they can bench Dort and start Caruso the whole game. Like they have other adjustments they can make. They can stop playing the two big as they need to and try to defend him with one big and have better offense.

Like everything they've done is work besides the shot making and the late game execution that we talked about that they kind of fixed last game. I don't really feel any reason to believe in the Nuggets to close this out outside of the Dunder keep shitting themselves. I feel like or the, yeah, everything that the Dunn have done, you look at the series and this series,

This series should be, like, a sweep. Yeah, really, it should have four-old. They should have four-old them. It's not, it's not, though. And I'm looking at that, and I'm looking at that, very glass, half-empty. Yeah. And the fact that you have not taken advantage of these opportunities, because, and one thing, and maybe I'm looking at it different than a lot of other people.

We've heard time and time. Some different shit. No, because, like, we've heard time and time again, like, oh, the Thunder, they're the, you know, they're the youngest team. in the league and they don't have experience. Man, Alice Caruso has won a championship before. This team made it to the second round last year. It's not like, if you were saying this and it was like the conference finals or if it was

the finals, if it was a place that they've never been to before, okay, cool. They literally were just here last year in a situation where they were going up against the player in Luca who was playing at an MVP level. They have seen this. They have faced a white demon in the second round before. And you, and you've had these problems. Mark Dagnol was coaching the team. So when people are saying like, oh, yeah, they're the youngest team, I'm not, I'm not

giving them that pass. I agree. This is, this is the best team in the NBA. Yeah. You look at all of their metrics. This team is outstanding. There is no reason why this series shouldn't be over right now. And the fact that it, that it is two, two, that is very concerning, concerning for me.

And if it was, if it was like, if you're playing. no shade to my future opponent. But if you're playing like the Indiana Pacers, right, and Tyrese Hallibur, fantastic, he's not Yokic, right? If you're not playing one of the three best players in the league, then I would say, okay, you can get away with this. You give Yokic and this team any type of opportunity. I'm not going to say that he's going to go crazy

and have this, you know, wild 40-20 game. But if it comes down to a couple possessions, I still will always feel good about Yokic and I'm going to feel good that Eric Gordon is out here hooping and having an amazing playoffs and an amazing series. So the Thunder need to, they need to stop playing around. And Game 5 needs to be a game. Like if they go down 3-2, I think, surprise, surprise. But like, if they go down 3-2, I don't think they come back.

I think the Nuggets win. Yeah, if you're on the brink of elimination, that's fair. That's all. But you could say glass half full. There's no reason to have a glass half, I mean, you could say glass half empty on the Thunder. Thank you. Are we heard? Are we here? Yep, yep, yep, yep, yeah. Almost. Okay. Oh, there we are. We're back. Okay. We're back. Sorry, y'all, Mo pulled the port out with his foot, my bad. We're back. We're back. But, um, what were we saying? I don't need to, they need to lock in. And the fact that they are still too, too is like, yo, this is, this is weird. Because you guys are an actually great team and I'm going to, and I'm going to hold you. And I'm going to hold you. you guys to the standard of a great team and not some wild young deer in the headlights team.

The way that you guys are talking about O KC, if someone was to close their eyes and not watch a lick or see the series as all, they'd be like, yo, like, oh my God, okay, she's getting embarrassed right now. Oh my God. Okay, C is down 3-1 right now. What the fuck is going on the brink of it? That's the thing. Okay, so people do whenever, every time they lose a goddamn game, there's so much eulogizing on the timeline. Everybody's saying, I told you not to believe in these young motherfuckers. They have no experience. They can't do it. I told you experiences. All that matters. It is so goddamn lazy. like yes they are young they aren't losing these games because of youth and inexperience

they're losing this game because of execution and they're playing horribly in those games they've lost if they lose this series it will not be i told you the young team can never win this team is a top five record of all time there's only been they're tied for fifth in teams i've won 68 games obviously we've talked a lot about they have the second best net rating of all time if they were to lose this series it would be one of the greatest failures in NBA history you can't explained it by youth, it would be simply lack of execution and not living up to the standard that you've clearly shown you are. It won't be the regular season means nothing. It's always been this biggest difference has ever been. No, it would be this team are fucking disappointing

to a degree we probably haven't seen outside of the Warriors blowing 3-1. It would be that level of a colossus failure to lose in the second round while having this much of a regular season dominance. It doesn't make sense. We're giving you an opportunity to do the thing that you've wanted to do all year, which is slander or a man, and be like, yeah, he's a, he's a free throw merchant, he's a fake MVP, all this other stuff. And you, and people are not taking it. They have not believed in the regular season. And, and they are, like, here's an opportunity for a guy that a lot of people hate. I'm trying to, I'm giving you an opportunity to hate and people are not taking it. Here's them, like, they are, they are just that good. And it is,

it is wild that it's, that is two, too. So I'm very, I'm very excited for the last three games. do you guys i mean i guess at this point makes sense that it would go seven because it's been very very back and forth but do you think that okayc can win the next two games we'll win next two games will no i think it'll probably go seven i think okayc and seven they're going to go both games at home the nuggets play nuggets home court advantage is like fucking massive it gets under talked about even still they had the best home court advantage in the league they're probably going to win that game but i think the nugget the thunder win in seven Yeah, I have no idea how it's going to swing out the rest of the series, but I do just feel confident in what he said being earlier, the series going to seven.

I lean towards OKC initially, but with the way they've been playing and how Mark Dagnall and Shea specifically has been playing as well, I'm a little bit more shaky on that stance, but I'm still going to hang my hat on that. Would I be surprised if Yokech and the Denver Nuggets like persevered through when stole this series? Absolutely. one of the greatest disappointments like you said probably didn't be history but it's yokech at the end of the day and if there's anything that like goat level player is gonna do it's shit like this yoke's playing horrible that's right too they clearly shown they can lock him up i will be so surprised at the nuggets thunder lose and obviously surprising things happen every year so it's very possible the Celtics and calves are about to lose surprising shit happens you know so that can't happen but it's a series is tied to two two they have two games at home until i see them be at the brink of elimination i'm not going to overreact just because there's, again, very little that the Nuggets are doing that's working. It's mostly just lack of execution and poor shooting on the Thunder's part. If there was a game that the Nuggets blew them out and we saw like the Nug, the Thunder have no answer for so-and-so, like if we saw four straight games of Yokic Dominion, like

a dig game one, then I would be like, okay, they can't defend Yokch. That's a clear, clear notch of their belt. But the fact that the only reason they have losses is because the fucking Thunder have trolled. That's on them. If they continue to troll, it's a colossal failure and they are fucking insanely embarrassing. But I'm not going to predict it until it happens. That's true. However, I, and even in all of this, you do just have to still get credit because Denver, you've stayed in these games. You've been close enough to where you've been able to capitalize on your opportunities and you've done what you're supposed to do. If we ran this on a spreadsheet,

yeah, OKC, it's supposed to win. But that's what, that's again, that's why you play these games and you have to play for 48 minutes. OKC has not done that and it's cost them two games. So shout out to Denver for being in these positions and going and getting two of these games. Their level of lock-in is simply amazing. Like, this team was so on the edge of collapsing when they fired Mike Malone. Their defensive intensity was so bad.

And they are defending their asses off. And like they only, they have very little adjustments to make, very little different ways to defend. But they're trying so hard. Their effort is so good. They're so intense that. is working. They're defending so much better than you possibly could have expected them to.

Shout out veteran, shoutout experience, a better leadership for them. They clearly have just the best execution we've seen from a starting five in a long time. Michael Wooda Jr. is about to lose his shoulder playing, you know, in this series. Yeah. He's giving it everything he has. And he's been playing well, too. Last game, I think he hit like five threes or something like that was uber efficient, doing his thing on offense and trying to do a thing on defense, too.

Fucking terrific series. For all you different Nuggets fans out there, you should not walk away from the series regardless of what happens. disappointed whatsoever. Someone said, so you guys don't think players get better to executing as they play longer. My guy,

Lou Dorr has been in the playoffs many times. He played it on there in the bubble. He played with CP3. Lou Dor has been in the playoffs plenty of times and the motherfucker

before this past game hadn't made a three-pointer on the road since March. That is not youth. That is not an experienced. That is this man is an inconsistent shooter.

Yes. Insane. He went 0 for 16 over the span of a month and a half. Granted, they didn't play a lot because they... Of course. Yeah.

So, but part of it, sure, can be an experience. Maybe Shay will get better at passing as time goes on. But these things can be boiled down to actual skills that these players aren't particularly good at that times, not just its youth and they have to get better over time. Like, not everything just magically improved because of time.

Sometimes they have weaknesses that are showing their head. Man, we'll see. We'll see. It's 2-2. If I had a pick right now, I would pick OKC. I've been a big believer in everything that they've done. We've just laid out. how great they've been.

I think I would I would pick them. But I don't know, man. Just having Yokic just lurking, it's scary, though. It is a little bit unnerving. Sure. Yeah, yeah. The Nuggets have a chance. It's not like wrapped up.

When I say I feel good about the Thunder, I'm not saying it's a guarantee. Nothing is a guarantee. They lost two games. So I can't be up here and say it's going to be no matter what. You never know. These games are all close margins. But I'm not as worried as I want.

was about this series now that's two two i think we've seen enough sample size that i feel decent about it but i don't know let's talk about the team we don't feel decent about the calves are down 3-1 and lost my 40 points in the first half of the past game against the pacers it's jover dude it's never been over more than ever for them they're taking all the energy everybody have for the thunder after game three whenever they're calling them fraud saying they can't do it the cabs just like grabbed it by the reins and they'll take that on for you they're dying for the thunder sins the most annoying part about this series is that people are comparing them to, hey, my 2015 Atlanta Hawks.

And I hate that this has happened because it's obviously we can all, I'm assuming y'all agree as well that they are not that. They've just been faced with some of the worst injury luck possible when it comes to the postseason honor the team. The Hawks made the conference finals. Thank you. The Hawks made the conference finals. And those three guys were, well, Garland wasn't there.

But Mobley was there for game one. And they lost that game at home. They had game two. and they trolled around in the final minute and they lost that game even without those guys. You go into Indiana in game three, you got those guys back and you go and you got a W. And then you came out and had one of the most embarrassing beatdowns

in NBA history. And you are down 41 points at halftime. I understand, I understand that those guys were hurt for a game. You should have won that. I'm not, I'm, when we look back at the series, if they ultimately lose tonight, because the game is going on right now, I'm not going to say, oh, yeah, this Cavs team was, it was decimated by injuries. That's the reason. They had opportunity. They had opportunities to win this series and they did not do it. Sure. Okay. I mean, we don't got to pretend the injuries aren't anything of it. They didn't do the most they could have, but they obviously started behind the eight ball because of the injuries. Like, they had to be perfect and had to have the championship mentality, all the stuff. They had to rise diverse. because the adversity was injuries. So, like, they did start off.

Like, losing Garland in game one is not nothing. He is incredibly important to what they do. They've played without Garland before. Not against a team this good. And it's the playoffs. Things are different. They have not a team when you can game plan for No Garland. And this team is playing amazing basketball on the Pacers.

It's very important to not have Garland. And he's back now. He looks terrible because he's not healthy. He's playing through it. He's clearly in pain. Clearly not what he once was. I don't know how healthy Evan Mobley is. But I'm sure he came back faster than he might have in the regular season.

Obviously, Hunter or two. like the injuries are important. I'm not going to say they're just these chokers that were not. The injuries matter a lot. Even in the game that they weren't there, you're up at the end. And the Pacers come in and the Pacers come in and score eight points in like 37 seconds or whatever, right? That's inexcusable. That is that.

Yeah, they should have won that game. That's what I'm saying. At the bare minimum, this series should be two, two, right? Because you have games two and three. And then you can say, even with out Garland, this is also a team, 64 games in the regular season. You've seen them play with certain guards and without certain guards. You've seen them in so many lineups. This is another team that has had a very, very good season.

Shout out to the Pacers. The Pacers, they do what they do. And we've talked about them all year long. And that is a very, very much a strength to be able to go in and have a very high floor that the Pace is operating. Their shielding is insane right now. Okay, I think you're giving the nod and your end of credit. They are playing amazing. Pascal's Yacca and Miles Turner

Their ceiling Their ceiling is insane right now What's the ceiling? Clearly the conference finals And at that point Clearly the fucking finals They can beat the Knicks They're ceiling

Yes They're playing I agree with that I agree with that The past 30 games The last 30 games The season They played at a CCBM pace

We didn't overreact Because we're like Okay It's March basketball We'll see But we're noticing They've clearly Just continue with that

Yes The Knicks The Cavs should have won game two They sold that These other games The Pacers are just Not to be undermined. They are playing amazing. This game was barely about the Cavs. This was one of the best

displays of shot making I've ever fucking seen. Actually, I'm not sure on the right game. Game after that. Game four. Game four was one of the best fucking displays of shot making I've ever seen. The Cavs didn't send a chance. It was like game two OKC, we're just an avalanche and the game was over before you blinked of an eye. Yeah. The Pacers are simply too good right now. I'm playing at too good of a level, capturing the right amount of lightning in a bottle to be able to beat them without full health. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, do. I just wanted to give a man I don't know I'm not

but actually they obviously very much can and probably will be favored like they're at that level I agree I agree with all that what I disagree with is the Pacers are are so good and the Cavs need to be at full strength and there are this level above Cleveland again this series should be

I understand like it's the playoffs and the margins are super super thin right the Knicks were up 2-0 and they had a differential of like plus two, right? Because they won both games by one. I understand that. I understand the margins are super small. But the Cavs had opportunities as a whole to execute and to capitalize.

And they didn't do that. And that is in that specific thing, that is an indictment on them as well as the Pacers coming out and being a great, a great team that is going to give you every punch. But guess what? you want 64 games i expect you to be able to handle that in certain in certain situations and you did not do that i know just saying two things can be true at once exactly i 100% agree with you i think a lot of people have undermined the indiana patients and just how good they've been midseason towards the end of the season and march and now they're just at an entirely new level this is a

different team of this season if this team right here was to start playing but way back in october they're fucking winning 60 games pushing 70 bro they're just like that and they've reached an entirely new level. That's very true. But while also at the under end, too, like, I agree. Like, there's no way possible in which you can make an excuse for the Cleveland Cavaliers outside of injuries for this not to be two-two. It should be too-toe. It's a big excuse. Like, I understand what you're saying. They won this many games. This isn't the same team. Darius Garland is not at that level right now because he's not healthy. So saying you can win all these games in the regular season, but now you can't. This team is marginally, I'm not

marginally is clearly not the same. They are like obviously not the same level of team that won those 64 games because Garland's not that level, don't know what Moby status is, obviously Hunter's hurt, up and down the roster. There's things we can point to. Jared Allen is getting severely outplayed by Miles Turner. So there is ways they're not playing good enough, but there has to be at least some acknowledgement that while, yes, they didn't take advantage of the opportunity they had to the highest degree, the injuries play a factor in that too.

We can't completely ignore it. These motherfuckers are different in Indiana. Yeah, and it's also that. It's also Indiana against many teams that could probably win without Garland. Indiana is just on another level right now they're clearly playing so well that you need to be a full strength to beat them I agree I agree you know you're so wrong

for throwing out those fighting words and saying saying you have them over the Knicks I didn't even thought about it but that's going to be a good series I don't know who predicts it's going to be it's going to be you know it's going to be great and I generally don't know who to predict that that's going to be difficult to come down to it's going to it's going to be good I'm very

excited I think I think something that has been very exciting for me for the Knicks is that Kat in the last couple games when they have allowed him and really just told him like you're just going to have to come up and you're going to have to play defense like they're we know the defensive deficiencies of Brunson and Kat

and obviously like if you get him into the pick and roll and we've talked about them switching and the Knicks said at a certain point I'm going to need you to get into a I'm going to need you to guard. I'm going to need you to defend. And to catch credit, he's had plays against Tatum and against Brown, where he's moved his feet well enough to either create a tough shot or be able to, you know, alter the shot at the rim.

That in itself right there, great, great development. Is he getting still, you know, bad fouls to here and there? Yeah, that's going to happen. But he's moving and he's had some pretty good moments. And so I'm very excited to see that. I'm very excited to see the fact that Mitch Robinson is really, you know, out here. And we talked before the playoffs. The deciding factor is going to be, are they going to be able to play Mitch and Kat?

And is that going to go well? It's gone pretty well. It's gone pretty well. That's the part I'm interested in for a series against the Pacers is that they've needed that against the Celtics because that's their main point of advantage is to go big and beat them up with Mitch because they know that cat anchor defense can't hang with this specific style of play. so Mitch has been the deciding factor there Kat's a lot better at power forward

I wonder how the dynamic plays out against the Pacers because Siakum is playing extremely well Seacom and Turner together are outplaying the shit out of the Cavs Biggs OG can guard Seacom so

Cat can probably play the five better against them than you can the Cavs just because they don't have the ISO scores so maybe you can go back to Cap being the five and then but maybe Mitchell I mean you go the too big route maybe you just beat them up down low I don't know Can Mitch hang with Turner on the perimeter?

Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, I agree. It's going to be so interesting to see because also if that's the case then and if Miles Turner for whatever reason, like, gets absurdly irritated and is unable to keep up with someone like Mr. Robbins' physicality, they don't have any more options coming off the bench. Those are their bigs. That's their best response. So I'm interested to see how impactful Mitch Robinson can be on that front. That's going to be a great series.

I if that happens we got we got locking we got lock in close the thing out tomorrow I'm yeah I mean

I'm maybe I don't think either team would be blowing it through one of the maybe I guess the patience could

the cabs are still really good but neither these teams that they're placing are healthy

so I feel like it's safe but you never know nothing's god damn safe this is the most this is the most unexpected

conference finals probably in a long time so who knows if it even maintains yeah man that's the end the stream

we'll see lots of watch games on right now we'll go switch to that also real quick because I've been waiting for like a week and after saying, I told you

also as well. And I did like a semi-victory lap after game two, but once again, I told you because you guys are saying the Celtics have not shot well. And I said, you can say the exact same thing for the Knicks, that they have not shot well, they have not played a good offensive game.

And a game four, you finally got the Brunton game. You finally got a McKell game. O.G. shot well. And their three-point shooting actually finally came to a regular level and they were up nine whenever, you know, The thing happened. So they were always going to, you know, at least have a decent game,

whether or not they won that game, regardless. No one told you they have zero good games. No, we told you that it's not surprising that the Celtics are able to hold them to worse shooting overall more often than night. I told you guys that and you guys are like, yeah, yeah, whatever. And now we're up three one so hot. And that's not the deciding factor why. They won other games without that.

You can take a victory lap, not because of that. No, we're up three one. You are, yeah. Like that it wasn't just because I'm taking victory laps on. Everything. I need to understand it. Okay. I need to understand that. Okay. Congratulations. Fair enough, man. I feel like it would be, obviously, I want the Thunder to win is my number one option. Number two, I want Yokic to win. If I could pick outcomes, the next winning would probably be the third most exciting outcome. I don't want to see any other teams win. So, you don't want to see Ant win? Not real. I mean, it would be cool. I guess you can go for if you're just talking about, like, what you want to see. That's fair. That's another good one. But Nick's winning, because they had to do that, they'd have to beat the Celtics and probably beat the Thunder, beat two of the best teams of the modern NBA.

that would be outrageous. Whoever is on the other side of this, like if the Knicks get to the finals, they're either going to have to beat Yokic, all-time player, Thunder, all-time player and all-time team, or Anthony Edwards, ascending star.

That one would be less impressive. I think they can beat the Timberwolves. But if they beat Yokic or the 68-win team, that would be just like, I can't even think of a better Cinderella run than that. Like, I guess it's kind of similar to 2011, but Brunson isn't held in the regards that dirk is so that's like different until he gets that right exactly that would change

of shit if he gets the dirk ring in new york oh my goodness top 30 all time you know what i'm saying this because give him a stature in the empire building you know what i'm saying i want to see them win because i've seen all the sidewalk talk videos i've seen those fucking insane fans i'm like if we get the moment of them winning jill brunson is like god he's never paying for you don't know we're going to do a pod in new york if that if they go if they go to the finals we will be there we will definitely We will be there. God, oh. Damn, do I, do I want the Knicks to make the finals?

It'll be. I can't, I can't. We're rocking with the Pacers. We're rocking with the faces. Stay on that side. We're rocking with the faces. Tyreez Hollibor and finals MVP. And with that being said, we'll see you all on Friday for this week's episode.